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Only a few years ago, Larissa May was a senior at Vanderbilt University and, like many students, she was struggling with anxiety and depression. She realized social media was having a big impact on her mental health and had an idea to start an initiative called #HalftheStory. Initially beginning as an art project out of her college dorm room with a modest grant, May has grown #HalftheStory into what is now a global platform that encourages authentic storytelling on social media. “I wanted to create a place where individuals could be open and honest about the things that they don’t usually talk about on social media,” May says.
We can often feel so much pressure to present ourselves on social media as “successful” - in our careers or otherwise - when the reality is actually different or we’re only telling part of the story. And both only sharing part of who we are and only seeing a curated version of others lives can put a strain on our mental health. “On one hand social media is the reason why I’ve met so many people and built amazing professional relationships,” May says. “But on the other hand, it’s contributing to an increased rate of depression and anxiety.” According to a 2018 report by Blue Cross Blue Shield, "diagnoses of major depression have risen dramatically by 33 percent since 2013. This rate is rising even faster among millennials (up 47 percent) and adolescents (up 47 percent for boys and 65 percent for girls)."
Through #HalftheStory, May is harnessing the positive power of social media to share the honest and authentic stories of people's real lives that are often missing on social media platforms. “And ironically, a lot of the time, the things that we don’t talk about are the things that actually unite us ” she says.
The mission of #HalftheStory has resonated with and indeed united many. Throughout the past two years #HalftheStory has received over 4,000 story submissions from 99 different countries around the world and is continuing to grow. May says, “A big part of our growth has come from partnering with different creators and influencers in the space. For example, I produced Grace VanderWaal’s music video and she shared #HalftheStory.”
May’s next goal is to make #HalftheStory the first nonprofit that provides educational resources in schools around the globe about social media and mental health. She’s started an offline workshop series for schools to educate students about the power of storytelling, how to transcend mental health stigmas and ways we can create boundaries around social media platforms.
Below she shares about her past experiences with social media and her career, her entrepreneurial journey in building #HalftheStory and advice for growing a powerful community platform. She’s not only an inspiring example of someone who’s following their passion to make it their life’s work, but drawing attention to a serious social issue by asking the tough questions about social media and mental health.
Sara Young Wang: How did you get started with #Halfthestory?
Larissa May: When I was a senior at Vanderbilt University I had a fashion blog and it was a really big part of my life. I would travel to New York Fashion Week and write for different publications. On my social media everything looked amazing, but I realized that whether it was at Fashion Week or on my college campus hanging out with friends, I was fabricating my life to make it look much more glamorous than it was. There was a lot going on behind the screen that people didn’t know. What most people would see is that I was a successful young entrepreneur, but what they couldn’t see was that I suffered deeply from anxiety and depression. So, I had this lightbulb moment when I was at a Fashion Week event and was basically on the verge of a mental breakdown. I realized that I was hiding behind the screen and I wanted to share the other half of the story.
So, as soon as I got back to campus I approached the art department and asked them if I could make #HalftheStory as a class so I could get credit for it at school. And so it began with a bunch of mood boards out of my dorm room. From there I just started speaking to students on the campus and reaching out to individuals and asking them to share their stories.
Young Wang: What has been your biggest challenge in building #Halfthestory and how did you address it?
May: One of the challenges is ‘How on an essentially zero dollar marketing budget do I reach millions of people?’ We’ve been successful in this through my personal outreach - we’ve been on Good Morning America, CNN, GirlBoss and others. I’ve spent a lot of time learning about public relations and how to get out there when you don’t have the money to work with a PR agency. I’ve learned relationships are the key to everything and when you’ve built a set of solid relationships you really have the power to do anything.
Another struggle that we face is the financial struggle. We’ve run through the initial grant quickly and as the demand has grown, a lot has come out of my own pocket. For me, this mission is a social good enterprise and that’s why we’ve made the move to become a nonprofit. I really believe that there are people across the globe that want to support us in saving the next generation from the effects of social media, so many of which we don’t even know about at this time.
Young Wang: What is your best advice for others who want to build a platform or community-focused initiative?
May: Find the thought leaders and micro-communities. A teacher based in South Korea found us. She’s passionate about women’s rights and about what we’re doing. She’s an example of someone who’s not a celebrity, but a thought leader and has contributed to the awareness of #HalftheStory. It’s about planting the small seeds. And you have to be flexible, dynamic and scrappy, especially when you start with a limited budget.
Another piece of advice is to ‘get out there and do it.’ I had the idea for #HalftheStory, I came back to campus, I spent the weekend trying to figure out what the logo and visual identity would look like and I got out there starting to meet people and spread the word. Get it out there and start seeing what resonates with people. And don’t wait to make changes, you have to do it every day.
Young Wang: What are your next steps with #Halfthestory? What’s your vision for the future?
May: My vision is to become the largest global nonprofit that provides educational resources about the relationship between social media and mental health. And to really use social media as a positive tool to help move us forward.
With more funding what we’d really like to do is build out a larger multimedia platform where we will gather and share stories from across the world. We’d also like to set up a research division to study a large group of students across the United States to better understand the effects of social media. And once we understand the effects, work with psychologists and psychiatrists to build workshops and integrate tools into our education systems. By doing this we can help prevent some of the struggles or mental health issues for students - and that so-called ‘technology addiction’. If you think about it, social media is sort of like smoking - everyone did it and then we saw the effects and I think the same thing is going to happen with social media.
